New Shanghai Restaurant, Chatswood Chase

Inside it's ye-olde kitsch Chinese while outside it's the Chatswood Chase food court, go figure.  The dumplings are made in the now ubiquitous fishbowl kitchen; they come out fresh, tasty and fast (watch the video below and you'll be amazed how quickly the dumplings are made).

The friendly waiter must have felt sorry for me because I was dining alone, because he made an effort to be especially helpful.  I went for his recommendation, shepherd's purse pork wonton tossed with sesame butter, red chilli oil and spice - how could you refuse a dish with a name like that?

While the filling was the traditional pork with lots and lots of shallots the pastry was different, much more al dente, more glutinous.  As you'd expect the sauce was rich and spicy, no need for additional sauces or chilli.  If you feel like trying a different style of dumpling, this might just be it.




New Shanghai, Chatswood Chase
345 Victoria Ave, Chatswood
(02) 9412 3358

New Shanghai Chinese, Ashfield

Although I was dying to go back to Shanghai Food House, we thought we should try somewhere different and so headed into New Shanghai... which was literally next door.

While our order was pretty standard for us, we did try something new - Shandong Shredded Chicken to be precise, which was melt in your mouth delicious.  The skin is particularly tasty.  Although the chilli wasn't very hot.

The other dishes were standard orders for us, pork dumplings (above), and my favourite dish at this restaurant, garlic cucumber (below); it looks plain but the crispy cucumber in sweet vinegar and sesame oil garlic sauce was divine.

The fried noodles weren't bad either, although I prefer next door's for this dish and the pork dumplings.

Overall, the meal was pretty good value, less than $40 for the two of us.